Lost Highway

See larger image

Average Customer Rating:	4.0
Release Date:	2008-03-25
Publisher:	Universal Studios
Actors:	Bill Pullman; Patricia Arquette; John Roselius; Louis Eppolito; Jenna Maetlind
Aspect ratio:	2.35:1
Audience rating:	R (Restricted)
Format:	Color; DVD; Widescreen; NTSC
Language:	Subtitled: Spanish; Subtitled: French; Subtitled: English; Original Language: English;
Cinematographer	Peter Deming
Writer	David Lynch
Editor	Mary Sweeney
Producer	Mary Sweeney; Deepak Nayar; Tom Sternberg
Writer	Barry Gifford
Weight:	0.2 pounds

Product Categories

Arquette, Patricia; Blake, Robert; Pullman, Bill; Rollins, Henry; Roselius, John; Stole, Mink; Wagner, Natasha Gregson; Lynch, David; All Universal Studios Titles; Drama; Drama; Mystery & Suspense; Movies & TV on DVD and Blu-ray Disc Trade-In; DVD; Widescreen; R; US & CA DVDs: Region 1; 1990 - 1999; English; DVD

Product description

This psychological thriller combines murder, mystery and deception as only David Lynch, the critically acclaimed director and writer of Blue Velvet and Dune, can. Lost Highway will keep viewers on the edge of their seats up until the explosive, unforgettable ending!

Plot is a meaningless term when trying to describe Lost Highway. Here, more or less, is what happens: A noise-jazz saxophonist (Bill Pullman) suspects his wife (Patricia Arquette) of infidelity. Meanwhile, someone is breaking into their house and videotaping them while they sleep. The wife is murdered and Pullman is convicted of the crime. Then, in prison, he transmogrifies into a young mechanic (Balthazar Getty) who is subsequently released, since, after all, he's not the guy they convicted. Getty goes back to his life and meets a local gangster's moll, who happens to be played by Patricia Arquette... but none of this has much to do with what the movie is really about. Dreams are what intrigues director David Lynch. Not friendly, happy dreams; his dreams whisper that what we think is real is just something we made up, something to keep ourselves from falling into chaos. Characters are fragments. Events happen not because they make sense, but because deep down we want these things to happen. Of course, in Lynch's dreams, as in our waking lives, getting what we want is not always pleasant. In the movie's best moments, you really have no idea what you're seeing. The screen is a big rectangle of color and shadow, but what it represents, well, it could be anything. And yet, in those moments, you've been given just enough hints of place, character, and story that these elusive images elicit a genuine dread, a sense that you might not want to see this, yet you can't look away; a sense that we are living on borrowed time, that something is fiercely askew in our psyches. As a whole, Lost Highway is a failure: much of it is padded, gratuitous, and indulgent and pointless cameos bog down an already sluggish narrative. Yet within that failure are moments worth more than the entirety of most successful movies. --Bret Fetzer

Customer reviews

« This is the real narrative »

For all those who said they could not understand the movie or appreciate the storyline, etc., and thus gave this film a low rating, here is a summary of the narrative so that you may wish to watch the movie again and enjoy it.

NARRATIVE

Pete Dayton a young attractive man works as a mechanic during the day and goes partying at night, and hangs out with Sheila a girl from the nighbourhood. His parents are nice and calm and do not intervene much in his life. One day at work he meets this girl, Alice Wakefield who was in the company of Dick Laurent a customer wanting to repair his car. She caught his eyes ogling her and she comes alone in the evening. Thus started a sexual relationship between her and the mechanic. Now Alice is a porn star in a film business owned by Dick Laurent, and is plotting to leave this business and run away. But before doing that, she wants to steal money from Andy, an associate of Dick. So she found Pete the innocent youngster (19 yrs) who would assist her in her plot. She leaves the backdoor open while she is having sex with Andy to let Pete sneak in and hit Andy. Pete hits Andy and Alice steals the money. But Andy wakes up only to fall on the edge of a coffee table and gets killed. They run away and get married and Alice dies her hair black. But they are pursued by Dick Laurent who fancies Alice and cannot let go. Alice and Pete now married have an average suburban house and change their names to Fred Madison and Renee Madison. A few years later, Dick finds out about them and threatens them, so Alice (now Renee) agrees to renew her relationship with Dick and sleeps with him at Lost Highway Motel. Eventually, she plots with Pete (now Fred) to kill Dick when Dick falls asleep after having sex with her. Pete (Fred) now in his mid-twenties, waits in the dark for his wife to leave the motel and sneaks in and kidnaps Dick and drives him to a desert cabin and kills him. He returns home and even before getting in he informs Alice that Dick is dead.
From then on, Alice (Renee) who always had a penchant for criminal thinking leads a normal life, and Pete (Fred) who was an innocent youngman cannot escape the nightmares of the murders he committed because he loves Alice (Renee). He has frequent nightmares and he suspects that his wife who was a porn star and who had sex with anyone to get what she wanted fast, is infidel to him with anyone anytime. Driven by his deteriorating psychological condition, he murders her one night. The police investigates and arrest him, and he is sentenced to death by electric execution. During the execution, his mind is revealing falshes of his memories about what happened.

THE PLOT
The plot is an artistic representation of the narrative. The film starts at a point where the tension between Pete and Alice is highest, and thirty minutes or so Pete kills Alice and is sentenced to death. He is now waiting execution in a prison cell and when is taken to be electrocuted, all the other events start flashing in his head, starting with his life as a 19 year old working as a mechanic and dating Sheila, and so on. All the other elements that are not directly part of the plot are there to improve the artistic presentation and to add style. For example, the strange man with the weird face is Pete's evil sub-conscious reminding him all the time about the murders he committed. There are moments when David Lynch gives away signales, for example when this strange man tells Pete/Fred that her real name was not Alice, or the photo when Alice and Renee show up only to have only Renee left after Andy is killed. Which means that Alice will now run away and use another name.

Now reviewers can watch the movie and enjoy it as I did. It is a piece of art.

Rating: (5 out of 5) @ 2010-09-07

« "No Such Thing as a Bad Coincidence" (Understanding LOST HIGHWAY) »

Before getting into the actual review, I'd like to clarify that Amazon's product Description for this item is incorrect, in that there is no "10-part multi-angle interview with David Lynch". In fact, there is no interview at all, and the only real negative comment I have about this gorgeously remastered FOCUS edition is that there are no interesting special features.

I also want to mention that this film's soundtrack is one of the best I've ever heard, featuring one of Angelo Badalamenti's most varied and evocative scores, and killer cuts from David Bowie ("I'm Deranged"), Nine Inch Nails ("The Perfect Drug"), Lou Reed ("This Magic Moment"), Smashing Pumpkins ("Eye"), Marilyn Manson ("I Put a Spell On You"), and others. The rock songs and the orchestral score weave in and out of each other seamlessly throughout. Nine Inch Nails' Trent Reznor, who also produced the outrageous NATURAL BORN KILLERS soundtrack, is the evil mastermind behind this great album.

OK, with all that out of the way...

LOST HIGHWAY was David Lynch's 1997 return to feature films after taking a few years off following the all-around disastrous reception of 1993's TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME. Interestingly enough, LH is even more relentlessly surreal and initially impenetrable than FIRE WALK WITH ME, and also deals with several of the same disturbing obsessions, such as divided personas, sexual perversion, brutal murder, and malignant, unknowable entities from other dimensions. Light stuff, right? Wrong.

The first time you see this film, you're likely to walk (or perhaps stagger) away without much of a clue as to what you just saw. But if you feel drawn to return this film, somehow feeling that there was something deeply compelling beneath the surface that you weren't quite able to grasp, you will soon find yourself formulating theories with every subsequent viewing.

The most popular interpretation of LH is that the main character, Fred Madison (played by Bill Pullman), is essentially psychotic, and that he is simply imagining a good deal of what we see in the film. The idea behind this theory is that Fred was arrested for brutally murdering and dismembering his wife, and now sits in his lonely prison cell, obsessively concocting his own desperately deluded version of what happened. Fred can't face up to his own bleak and twisted reality, so he imagines he is another person with another life altogether. Unfortunately, Fred's subconscious won't let him indulge in his fantasies indefinitely, and his imaginings end up turning inward on themselves into a nightmare worse than the actual reality he is fleeing from.

Others go even further off the deep end and argue that the entire film - not just the final two-thirds - take place inside the head of (an apparently unidentified) madman. The obvious problem with this uber-reductionist theory is that it completely reduces this complex and mysterious film to nothing more than a series of random and inane delusions. To me, this latter interpretation is purely ludicrous.

At any rate, the biggest problem with these "Fred-was-imagining-it-all" theories - especially the first one I mentioned - is that they just don't hold up under honest scrutiny. And here's why.

The main problem is that a number of the most important plot threads in the film are introduced BEFORE Fred goes ape and murders his wife, including: a trio of increasingly terrifying and intrusive video tapes mysteriously left in manilla envelopes on the Madisons' front door; a demonic-looking fellow who can be in two places at once and who invades the Madisons' home on the night of the murder; and the all-important question of who assisted Fred in killing his wife (because the murder was video-taped, there had to be an accomplice, presumably the person who sent the three aforementioned video cassette tapes).

So. If we are to buy into the idea that Fred is imagining everything we see in LOST HIGHWAY after his incarceration, we must also buy into the idea that the tapes and the Mystery Man and the identity of Fred's accomplice are all tantalizing mysteries which were included simply to be discarded and forgotten.

If that's your thing, then be my guest. But if you actually want to understand what this staggeringly complex and disturbing film is all about, I'll give you a few choice clues and a strong recommendation that you simply watch the film again with some of my comments in mind.

Everyone strapped in and ready? Good - let's ride.

The most important thing to understand about this film is that everything we see in the film is actually happening, as opposed to being dreams or delusions in Fred's mind. Now don't get me wrong - there is a dream sequence in the film, and it is one of the most important scenes in the film. However, my point is that the dream is clearly a dream - Fred is lying in bed and recounting a dream he had to his wife. And if you go back and watch Lynch's other films, you'll see that this is always the case - if a character is dreaming or having a flashback, it is made perfectly CLEAR that the character is dreaming or having a flashback. And again, there are also some important flashback sequences in this film - in fact, the dream sequence is recounted as a flashback - but all are clearly identifiable as flashbacks.

Once you can overcome this hurdle - and believe me, it is tempting to succumb to the idea Fred is simply imagining most of the film - you are officially on the right track to understanding LOST HIGHWAY.

Next up: the uber-creepy Mystery Man (played by Robert Blake, sans eyebrows) is NOT a figment of Fred's purportedly deranged imagination. Instead, this malignant man in black is best described as being an otherworldly demonic entity, not unlike characters we've seen in other David Lynch productions, such as TWIN PEAKS's Killer BOB, MULHOLLAND DR.'s frightening "Bum behind Winkie's", INLAND EMPIRE's The Phantom, and so on.

The MM is the film's supernatural element, and he is responsible for the transformation of Fred Madison into Pete Dayton (played by Balthazar Getty), a transformation otherwise written off as being a mere delusion in Fred's head. He is also responsible for the trio of doppelgangers, or doubles, whom we meet in the film ("Mr. Eddy", "Alice Wakefield", and Fred's unnamed twin).

To sum him up, MM is a classic variation on The Devil archetype who cuts Faustian deals with any man or woman foolish or desperate enough to invite him into their lives. Fred, Renee, and Dick are three such individuals, and understanding this plot-point is central to understanding the overarching story of LOST HIGHWAY.

Lastly, the final act of the film becomes more comprehensible when you bear in mind that most of it takes place in an otherworldly place outside the realm of reality - the very place from which the demonic MM comes from. This "other place" is also something we've seen in so many of Lynch's previous films, including ERASERHEAD (the Singing Lady's world inside Henry's radiator), TWIN PEAKS (the Black and White Lodges), MULHOLLAND DR. (Club Silencio), and so on. Pete Dayton and Alice (Renee's doppelganger) cross over into this realm when they drive out into the desert along the titular lost highway.

So the final third of the film takes place in one of these extra-dimensional zones, where the laws of space and time as we know them do not necessarily apply. Lynch clearly illustrates this point by making the MM's headquarters a backwards-exploding cabin which impossibly detonates into existence. We only return to reality at the tail end of the film, when Fred's unnamed doppelganger returns to his former home and is chased off by the caravan of police cruisers.

Feeling confused yet? That's OK - you probably should be. But next time you watch this film, just think about some of the ideas I've presented here, and see if the film doesn't start making a little more sense.

If not, you can always just throw your hands up and say that LH is just an absurdly random and unecessarily convoluted look into the whacked-out mind of an apparent madman who apparently killed his wife. Or something like that.

Either way...enjoy.

Rating: (5 out of 5) @ 2010-08-11

« Step right up. Make your choice. »

Lost Highway is a movie that allows you to make a choice. Is it a Twilight Zone Movie in which you're dealing with soul transference & time travel. Could be. A faustian bargain? Are you dealing with the roving inner eye of an insane mind?
That was my choice & this review will reflect that choice.

The movie starts with a man & his wife whose house is being video taped from the inside. Is this being done by an outsider, evil spirit or is this the act of a sinister plan inside the home? I say inside job. If you're messed up enough to shoot video of your place to deceive either yourself or your mate, putting it in an envelope & leaving it outside is no biggee.

What a lovely relationship they have too. He's freaked out & she's subservient enough but also obviously has the quiet confidence to plan her way through her troubles. Enter now, the best character of the movie only listed as "mystery man", Robert Blake. He's never gone anywhere he states, that he wasn't invited. Sounds like an evil spirit all right & remember they've talked before. In my book they've talked many times, like each night as Pullman roves the corridors of his insane & escape proof mind.

You get a murder, an arrest & a conviction. So neat & tidy plus added stress on an already bent mind. What happens in Pullman's cell at night is the key to whether you go towards Twilight Zone or insanity. Is Bill Pullman & Balthazar Getty the same man. Is Pullman actually in prison or is he in the prison for the criminally insane with a real body played by Getty.

I chose Balthazar Getty as the real & very, very, sick, person in this movie. Pullman is Getty's uber-human. Pullman is what Getty wants to be. Not an auto mechanic that lives at home with mommie & daddie, BTW- great cameo's here on ma & pa, but a musician in a nice apartment with a super hot lady that belongs to one of the BIG people in his little man's world. I mean Getty covets everything he perceives as being above his station in life. The car, the women & in the end the will to be violent to obtain his desires.

Now the lady & thank you Mr. Lynch for Patricia. A perfect fit for this role which I believe you see in the show Bound. This girl wants the money & there is nothing she won't do to get it. Attracted to power like a drunk to alcohol she has finally realized that if she has the money she can be the power, not bask in someone else's. Now look at how they meet. She did sorta make the pick herself. She picked that punk as soon as she saw he couldn't take his eyes off her while she was still in the car. Lamb to the slaughter she thinks, but this isn't Body Heat even though Patricia puts out tons of that.

Actually I believe the movie is pretty straight forward once you decide if your watching Rod Serling's Twilight Zone or if your seeing inside the mind of a little man with big dreams that went terribly awry & landed him in the prison we can't escape, our own minds.

The men's dreams are trashed. The woman's dreams are killed. Even the Big Boss is pancaked out of his dream in the desert. The only winner here is "Mystery Man" who never goes where he's not invited. Where does Mystery Man come from & where does he go to? Whose call does he answer? Isn't it to be expected that as the police close in for the capture, no O J here, Mr. Getty begins to revert back to his other identity. Sorta like Psycho without the maternal leanings so no insipid weakness.

I give the movie 5 stars for entertainment value as you can get sucked in here and wake up 2 hr's later thinking only 25 min's passed. Lot's of misdirection.
I give Patricia anything she wants. I'll be Getty for her.
The rest of the cast gets 4 stars except Blake who gets 5.
Movie rating is 4 1/2 stars.
A nice trip down the lost highway of my mind.

Private rant here: Where the H was the media circus that would of surrounded Getty's release from prison. Seems Hollywood either toons the Warden, the guards, the convicts, the media or the whole system. This show used the other method which is- just don't show it.

Rating: (4 out of 5) @ 2010-07-17

« LOST LOST HIGHWAY »

This is an awful print of the film and not worth the purchase. I recommend the 2-disc version on region 2, a fine anamorphic print ,with a vibrant DTS track. David Lynch is the master of the surreal and if you want to experience it properly then check out the european print

Rating: (5 out of 5) @ 2010-04-21

« Hang In There »

The first half of this movie you are going to blame me for having recommended it. But then it makes a change, and entertains you. Yeah, David Lynch does that with all of his films.

Did I mention Patricia Arquette is topless?

Rating: (4 out of 5) @ 2010-02-15

Quantity:


List Price:	$19.98
Our Price:	$10.13 (Save $9.85)
Availability:	Usually ships in 1-2 business days